Pensacola: A Pleasant Surprise

I have not written anything in a while. It is not because I quit doing things. It is because I have been doing a lot of things. 

Since my last post I have bought a house, a car, got a new job, went back to college and got a marekting degree, buried two dogs, endured a few hurricanes, and have been to Rome.  These are just the highlights. 

Life just keeps on going. 

Jon and I are about to hit ten years of dating bliss. Seven of those years, we had five dogs. Vacation was not possible for us. Well, vacation together, was not possible.  I went places. He went places. It was not ideal. Two of our elderly dogs passed. Bailey and Aries. We were sad, but also know that we spoiled both of them rotten while they were in our care. Both were rescues. 

Bailey 

Aries

What we did realize is we could travel TOGETHER with the three younger dogs. I say younger, but the youngest are eight. Not a lot of interest in doing things other than sleeping and napping. They have been described as portly. The vet assures us it is "hormones" and that is why we love our vet. 

Pan, Lil Girl and Eris

We have found Airbnb to be the easiest way to lodge with the brats. I filter for a superhost  that is pet friendly. Then I message the owner to ask them how pet friendly they really are.  When people hear you have three, one-hundred pound pits, they tend to get a visual. It is not the same as that picture above. 

Their maiden trip was to St. George Island, FL for the Fourth of July. This is where we learned that Eris the Elder, did not "do" steps. Poor Jon had to carry her up and down every day. Now we look for one story houses with fenced yards. 

On our second journey with the kids, we headed on over to Pensacola. My birthday landed on a Saturday and I really did not want to do much other than have a really exceptional meal. 

I have not been to Pensacola in so long that if asked  I would have probably say I have never been. I have not really given Pensacola much thought. In my mind it was a beach town that had airbrush and bars. That's it. Airbrush and bars. That is not at all what Pensacola is about. 

I found this adorable listing located downtown. It was exactly where I needed to be. It was perfect. The decor of the house was an abundace of plants and books. We were minutes from downtown.

We got a late start on Friday. The only thing we managed to do the first night was try the new Popeye's chicken sandwich. It was worth it. 

Saturday morning we were well rested and ready to go explore. First stop was breakfast.  Every Saturday there is a market. It starts at 9 a.m.  We arrived downtown a bit before that to park and we walked to the restaurant, Polonza Bistro. 

 We opted to sit outside since the temperature had not yet hit triple digits. It was pleasant.

My labor of love.

As you all know, I love the library. I love crafting with book pages and really anything that has been previously used and discarded. I received an email asking if I could help with a project for The Sharing Tree, a local, re-use , recycle store in town dedicated to help teachers and crafters. I find so much treasure there.

Carly, the owner, was invited to do an installation at our local Whole Foods. She sent her design board and asked for volunteers. I saw what she wanted and signed up. I went by her store and grabbed some old sewing patterns. I then went home and started making paper flowers out of said sewing patterns.

Isn't it gorgeous? It requires scissors or a scallop punch. And a brass fastener. I found mine at office depot. You just cut out a few layers ( I think I used 5) then crumple them up and then thread them onto the fastener. 

Then I made more flowers. 

I needed to figure out a way to attach them to something. I attempted to string them from an embroidery hoop. That was a nightmare. I sat and stared around the living room until I fixated on a large chinese lantern hanging in the corner. BINGO.

I got out the old hot glue gun and went to town. Then about halfway through. I realized I had to make MORE FLOWERS. I switched it up with a few book pages that had pictures on it to resemble blooms. I finished and realized it still needed something. So, I went back and grabbed another sewing pattern and made a pom pom out of it and hung it with bakers twine. 

I love it so much. It looks beautiful with the rest of the installation and Whole Foods may have a influx of customers that I told to just go look!

I found a small lantern, solar powered, that I am going to attempt next. I will post as soon as I feel the need to make another flower. 

THE PAINTED COUCH

A few years ago I bought a 2 piece love seat for our back porch. I paid 6 dollars for the set. It was a bargain considering I didn't care what happened to them. They were already a bit dirty. Add Florida weather and dogs and you have what will more than likely end up in a burn pile. And that is almost what happened Saturday. Almost.

I just loved the style of them and the fact they can be a couch, a chaise or 2 chairs made me hold off the burning. I did a little research on pinterest. I read several tutorials and felt confident I had the perfect practice furniture. I had left over paint from the hallway which my boyfriend affectionately calls "tidy bowl" blue. I ran up to Joann's and used my coupon(s)to pick up some fabric medium and I was off to painting.....the couch.
The link I followed was found here. You use indoor house paint mixed with fabric medium. It is that easy.


The pre-loved, dirty, couch piece.

During the process pictures.

I was concerned I would run out of the blue so I switched to lime green for the cushions. It took a while to dry since it was raining off and on all weekend and the HUMIDITY! But here is what the final product looked like in the end. A million bucks, a happy owner and a feeling of accomplishment.

Darbarella: Up-cycled book crafts.

Darbarella: Up-cycled book crafts.

Sunday and Some Spray Paint

I had a few pinterest projects that I wanted to do this weekend. Not labor intensive, mind you, just a couple lazy day projects that gave me a sense of accomplishment.

This is what I did:

PROJECT 1) I have a hard time throwing out jars with lids. I had a small collection of spaghetti sauce jars so I decided to transform them. I found this idea , here.  Well, this may not have been the exact site but this is what I did. I took a few cast off toys and some soon to be trash and now I have awesome containers to hold my coffee stuff!

PROJECT 2) The office next door is closing down and they threw out a bunch of stuff, including a couple of paintings. Not my style but that was going to be fixed. I chose the painting of the beach scene because it had a frame and it was smaller. I got some vinyl stickers and some white spray paint. I followed this tutorial here. I wasn't sure what I was going to put on it and ended up having to use three different size stickers. My boyfriend helped with the placement and suggestions when I realized I ran out of the letter size I wanted. He also spray painted it for me because I was afraid I would muck it up. I love it. He wants to do one now, too!

Birthday Journey

I had a birthday party to attend on Sunday. I also know the girl loves crafts. This is my idea. I love the final product and I didn't break the bank. Hell, I didn't even touch the bank.

 

This is what I did. I went to our local craft recycle store, The Sharing Tree, and picked up  piece of foam board for 75 cents. I then found a Chamber of Commerce Map of Tallahassee (free) and ironed out the creases. I put the map on the ironing board, topped it with a dish towel and on the lowest setting ironed out as many creases as I could.

I then mounted the map onto the foam board with spray adhesive. I had framed the precious quote for my boyfriend a while back. I just hand wrote it on the foam board. If I didn't have time restraints I would have done it on the computer. I then attached push pins into the foam board and asked the party guests to mark on the map where they met the birthday girl and then also sign their name. In our case a lot of us met her at the same restaurant so we just all signed around the one push pin.

Again. I loved it. And I am certain I will make this again.

Pasta, from Scratch

We are paying bills. Paying off loans. In other words, we are broke. However,silver lining, this is when I feel I am the most creative and resourceful. I wish I could remember to do these things when we had money in our account. It would save us more money.

I have made pasta from scratch before but with the help of a pasta machine. I still have the machine but I wanted a challenge( and less dishes). I guess next time I will look for something harder because THIS WAS EASY.

I used The Pioneer Woman's Blog for instructions, which there weren't that many. Our family consists of 2 so I used 1.5 cups flour and 3 eggs for 3 servings . I didn't want to come up short since I wasn't making more.

I didn't take process pictures, my hands were covered in dough.

I followed instructions from the blog and it all came together quite nicely. I rolled it as thin as I could get and just used a pizza slicer to cut it. I didn't do it exact and I loved the homemade look of it all.

Every so often my boyfriend's clients will give him tips in the form of food. We have gotten deer sausage,local honey and other baked goodies. This week he brought home halibut that his clients caught in Alaska.

I butterfly cut the halibut steak and popped it in a baking dish I had sprayed with Pam. I sprayed some more Pam on top and sprinkled with dill. Oven on 400. 10 minutes. I cooked the pasta. IT TAKES 2 MINUTES. 2 MINUTES. I am not used to cooking fresh pasta so I think I cooked it a minute too long. Still, delicious. I had some alfredo sauce from a jar (don't judge) in the fridge. I poured a smidge on the pasta then topped with the baked halibut. Fin.

I was proud  of myself and no one was the wiser that this gourmet meal would have never happened if we didn't have 2 dimes to rub together.